Blue Nights
by Ponella
Summary: Simply my view on what could have happened after S6E5 'The Rebel Flesh', and a little in-depth look at the Doctor and Rory's friendship and their understanding of each other - it's not Doctor/Rory but it's cute. Rating may be subject to change.


**A/N: **I was very surprised when I got online Saturday night straight after watching the latest episode 'The Rebel Flesh', and there was very little hubbub about it – and by 'hubbub' I mean fanart, fanfiction and general fan…ness. I only found ONE picture of the Doctor Ganger, and it was on facebook. And yes, I'm calling him the 'Doctor Ganger' and I hope it catches on. I'm currently watching Back to the Future 3, and since there's been hardly any fan-coverage on this episode after it aired, I see it's only right to get something started. And the Doctor has his own Doppelganger! Something both my mum and I completely suspected, but she had to see the episode after I did and I was really excited that she was catching on so quickly but didn't want to confirm any of her suspicions. And was I the only person in the universe who exclaimed "OH MY GOD, THE TARDIS!" when we saw the TARDIS starting to sink because of the acid? But I was really ecstatic when I saw the Doctor Ganger, despite already realizing what was happening before it happened. So… this A/N is too long already, shall I get started? And the rating may be subject to change with this, as I have no idea where it'll go, but I should get started.

**Glossary:**

Danger – my name for the ganger Doctor – to get the pronunciation, just get the word 'Ganger' and replace the G with a D.

Myocardial Infarction – a fancy scientific word for what we call a 'heart attack'.

**Chapter One – Experience**

"Well, I'd like to say I haven't been copied before, but – then again, I have." The Doctor said, confronting his doppelganger. It could have been said that he were standing in front of a mirror, were it not for the man in the mirror's ghastly appearance. No, the differences between the two were visible right from the off – the other man's cracked pallor, discoloured eyes and half-formed facial features were an obvious distinction from his fully-formed counterpart. Other than that, they were identical – the bowties, flannel shirts and tweed jackets similarly pristine, and neither had any evidence of badly grown hair, along with any grey hairs.

"You mean _we_ have."

"Yes, I forgot, there's another me again that I have to account for…"

"Another you? Doctor, have you had a ganger before, is that why you know so much about them?" Amy asked, looking at the Doctor – the non-ganger Doctor – curiously.

"No, I haven't had a ganger before, but I've been _cloned_ before. Complete accident, a friend of mine touched my severed hand while it was full of regenerative energy, all that nearly killed her, but it's in my past now and it's where I'd rather it stayed." she hated when he got like this – he'd start to explain so much about a problematic time in his life, and then become uncommunicative and reclusive again as soon as he could stop himself.

He supposed he should have detected this new arrival – _sensed _him even, as soon as he'd torn himself from the gunge he was created from. That _gunge_, which he'd had the _stupidity_ to scan and touch, giving it a reading, an _imprint_, of his own biological signature which the gloop could use to replicate _him_, his mind, his thought patterns, even what he _wore_. It terrified him and fascinated him at the same time. Not to mention the fact that while his face seemed to have a disgusting half-formed quality to it, the hair and clothes were exact, right down to the blue bowtie. A shudder passed through him, looking at his ganger-self and feeling for all the world like he was out of his depth.

_Wouldn't be the first time_.

This thought passed through the regular Doctor's head, but for a moment he could have sworn it was a thought of his doppelganger. "What are you going to do? Rebel like the rest of the flesh, kill your original?"

"Unlike the rest of those doppelgangers, _I_ have some sense of right and wrong. I _know_ killing is wrong." the Doctor-Ganger now smirked evilly, "But that doesn't mean I don't know how to do it – and get away with it."

"Sometimes I'm too smart for my own good – and that's just a copy of me. Imagine what the real me could do – the copy can do better. Imagine and RUN, all of you!" the Doctor exclaimed, "I can hold him off; I spend hours thinking of how to stop myself from doing the unthinkable."

"What's the unthinkable, Doctor?" Amy asked, unable to steal her eyes away from his doppelganger.

"Don't ask questions; just run from this place and hope you don't encounter me."

Everyone did as he said, for once. He knew he was alone, but it didn't mean he couldn't put up a fair fight in front of _himself_.

"So, what should I call you? I can't call you Doctor-Ganger or anything like that. Perhaps _Danger_ – synonymous with 'danger' in the sense of something very dangerous, very _me_."

"You can call me whatever you like – we are each other, after all."

"I think I know how this happened – but what happened to _you_? You obviously took allot longer than the others to become fully formed."

"Like Miranda said – _fully programmable matter_. As soon as you scanned the gloop, I was created – of course, I took allot longer to get myself together because I didn't have the added advantage of solar power like all the others had. You know the big vat that all the gunge is in before it gets spilled into the crevice where doppelgangers are created? I _am _the gunge in the vat." the Danger grinned, "And I know _exactly _what to do now."

* * *

><p>Rory Williams had gotten used to the unexpected by now.<p>

A bill that he forgot to pay? Pales in comparison to most things.

His wife's imaginary friend becoming real? Small change.

His wife's imaginary friend lying in a pool of his own blood in a 13th century monastery?

Now he'd seen everything. _Including_ his wife's imaginary friends' crazy clone hanging over its' original like a bad smell, the clone running once it had spotted him.

"Doctor!" Rory ran to him once the ganger was gone – he felt his approach might be hindered otherwise.

He felt a pulse – the Doctor was still alive, but barely. "Rory…" the Doctor seemed to be crying, and all Rory could think to do was cradle his bloody head as he wept, "Myocardial…"

"Myocardial _what_?" Rory dreaded that he'd finish with 'infarction' – sometimes his medical knowledge was a real downer.

"…Infarction. Call… Martha."

"Who's Martha? Doctor?" Rory was surprised when the Doctor pulled a mobile phone from his jacket pocket.

"Tell her to call… Jack. She'll know who I mean… Get them here!"

"Okay, Doctor…" he didn't know who this 'Jack' or 'Martha' was, but as long as they could save him he didn't care. He flipped the phone open, and went through the contacts – a 'Martha Jones' was the only contact he could think to use. He dialled the number, hoping to god that whoever this Martha Jones was, she was a doctor.

* * *

><p>"Hello?" she'd been surprised when she'd got a call in from the mobile she'd given the Doctor, but answered the call none the less.<p>

"Hello, is this a Martha who knows the Doctor?"

She fumed; he was letting a complete stranger call her?

"Please… he's injured, he's losing allot of blood. He told me to tell you to call Jack, and said you'd know what he meant."

"Where and when are you?"

"I… I don't know when or where we are, but we're in a 13th century monastery – not actually _in _the 13th century, just in one of their monasteries. Britain, I think. We came here because of a solar storm and…"

"We'll get to you as soon as we can. Is he conscious?"

"…Drifting in and out. Sorry, I'm Rory Williams by the way – me and my wife are travelling with the Doctor, and I'm a nurse, but I can't do much for him right now."

"Keep him talking; he likes to talk, it'll keep him awake." she paused, "Excuse me, but what does he look like now? Still manic hair and manic personality, or haven't you been told about that yet?"

"…I wish I knew what you meant, but I don't. He's, uh… wearing a bowtie, suspenders, tweed jacket. Just what he usually wears – and no manic hair, I don't think. Then again, it's coping very well with all the blood…"

"Thankyou, Rory, we'll try to pinpoint your location." she said, hanging up. She called Jack next, "Jack, it's the Doctor… It sounds like he's regenerated, but he's injured and he asked for us."

"What, is he with you?"

"No – with a nurse in a 13th century monastery. Not _in _the 13th century, apparently."

"Is she a sexy nurse?"

She rolled her eyes, "It's a male nurse, and it sounds like the Doctor's bleeding to death." she was taken aback by the sudden appearance of Jack behind her, "I see you've got your vortex manipulator working again."

"Guess he figured I'd manage it. Now lets go save him – I trust you're supplied with medical equipment?"

"I wouldn't be a Doctor if I wasn't – are you sure you can find him with that thing?" she said, looping an arm through his.

"I've found him with it before, haven't I?"

* * *

><p>Jack gagged. Martha shrieked.<p>

"Are you Jack and Martha?" it was Rory, still in a futile attempt to cradle the Doctor's head and stem the bleeding, "Because if you are, I think he needs your help."

Martha overcame her momentary loss of composure at the sight of the Doctor's bleeding cranium, and got to work. Jack, meanwhile, was still in shock, "What happened to him?"

"He's… I think his ganger got him."

Martha saw a shadow pass over Jack's face, and asked, "What do you know about the gangers, Jack?"

"I've heard of this – gangers becoming cut off from their originals. Gangers are _copies_, Martha, duplicates of real people. They were made for all the jobs we couldn't do – like here, mining for deadly acid. These gangers have evidently become cut off from their originals and developed their own separate minds and feelings with the same memories as their originals – they've become people in their own right."

Martha was now bandaging the gash on the Doctor's head, trying her best to decrease the bloodflow in that area, "So the Doctor's ganger did this?"

"Yes; I saw him in here with the Doctor on the floor when I got here, it was obvious that he'd tried to kill him." Rory said, still cradling the Doctor's head as he still couldn't think of anything better to do, "My wife and I…" he became horror-stricken and asked, "Doctor, where's Amy?"

"Safe… and sound." the effect on Rory was instant – his shoulders slumped and he sighed in relief.

"Is she in the TARDIS, Doctor?"

"Probably… not. TARDIS… sinking."

"Sinking, Doctor? Is there an acid leak outside?" Rory inquired, panicked.

"Yes. Told Amy to… run. And the others."

Rory relaxed again; if the Doctor said she was safe, she probably was, he reasoned. He also reasoned that the Doctor had now lost consciousness indefinitely – his entire body had slumped into his arms, "Keep _talking_, Doctor. Remember, you like to talk…?" Rory didn't notice the break in his own voice, or the tears streaking down his face.

"We'll have to get him to hospital – he's bleeding too much for me to handle." Martha said. It was true; the blood was continuously seeping through the bandages.

"What about…"

"We can pick them up too! And the TARDIS isn't going to come to any harm." it was now Jack who spoke. He could see the boy was shaken up, but also saw something different – ancient eyes and a no-nonsense view of the universe. It's what he'd often seen in the Doctor.

"I don't know if I told you, but… before you got here, he told me he was having a heart attack."

* * *

><p>Rory read the patient notes, feeling like he'd read them over and over. <em>Myocardial Infarction, Ruptured Cranial Cavity<em>. He'd had a heart attack and got his head kicked in – not the day he had envisioned for the three of them. He supposed it was just luck that only his left heart had had a heart attack – he didn't want to imagine what would have happened if both hearts had decided to give out.

He was recovering, but slowly. Friends of his often visited when it was assumed that he'd be awake – friends Rory and Amy had never met before, but friends of the Doctor's were friends of theirs, and they all felt the same for the Doctor at this time. His head as stopped bleeding once they'd got him to a hospital, thankfully, but the heart attack had caused him to go into a healing coma for a short while. He still went into it regularly, but now he didn't need it as much and he could quite happily talk to his visitors for a while before they made him sleep again. It was lucky that he hadn't gotten any brain damage – all of it was just luck, really.

The Doctor himself was shaken up – far more traumatized than any of them had seen him. When Martha tried to examine his head and replace the old bandaging, he clutched his head in fear as if she'd kick it in too. It had gone on like this every time, but thankfully this fear became less and less prominent every time she tried to examine him. They'd told him the advantages of therapy, but he said he wasn't an old crackpot and didn't need some old quack analysing him.

He'd met several old friends of the Doctor's – Dr Martha Jones, Captain Jack Harkness, but those were the only ones he could remember the names of at the moment. Luckily they were trustworthy, and could sympathize with his situation. Rory was more the type to wait things out and hope for the best; they wanted results fast and got them.

"Doctor, you think you can just bounce back from this like you always do, but in this instance you can't," Martha told him, "You're going to have to face up to your fears and let our psychiatrist deal with you – maybe they'll be the first person to sort out that head of yours."

"My head doesn't need _sorting out_, Dr Jones; it's perfectly fine as it is."

"_What it is _is a mess. You're shaking, you can't even handle it right now!" she snapped, placing her hands on his to steady them.

"Look, when will you get off my back about this therapy stuff?"

"When you agree to it. We're not asking much – just that you talk to someone about what's happened to you." she knew she could be asking too much – push him too far and he could shut everyone out completely.

"Only if it won't judge me…"

"psychiatrists aren't here to judge you secretly – they're here to help, and it looks like you need some."

He pouted, "Okay, but just because I'm stuck in this hospital doesn't mean you can mess with me. One wrong move by this quack and I might rethink my acceptance."

"He's no _quack_ and you know it. He's a UNIT psychiatrist, trained to fully assess the extent of your unnecessary trauma as a result of your past experiences."

* * *

><p>It seemed the psychiatrist only made things worse; the more the Doctor tried to talk, the more reclusive he became. The only person he would willingly talk to was Rory, and those times were far and few between. He supposed he should be grateful – they were still trying to help him, although he himself had already decided he was a lost cause. He saw the frustration he created and decided it was pointless to try to go along with their ideas when he knew they weren't going to work. They told him he had a 'negative mindset', while he just thought he was being realistic. Why fix what ain't broken? No matter what he'd been through, he'd always coped and made it through in the end. That was how he justified his uncooperative argument, in any case.<p>

The only person that seemed to understand him was Rory, which was quite a surprise when he realized it. Rory kept him entertained, helped him heal and knew very well by now when he looked like he was going to sneak off to the TARDIS – he wasn't allowed to go travelling until he was fully healed, and until he'd opened up a bit to the psychiatrist. He didn't like the psychiatrist. He'd been correct in his assumptions of him; an old quack. Literally, an old man who was a psychiatrist. An old man who, while getting on in years, had very little experience compared to him and Rory. The Doctor wanted someone with experience – preferably somewhere around a thousand years of experience. It meant they could be on the same level in some aspects. A silly deaf 57-year-old human was not on the same level as he was. Although the 1800-or-so-year-old Rory had been erased from existence after Big Bang 2, it still made more sense to him to talk to Rory – and Rory still remembered nearly two thousand years of experience.

**A/N: **I was brainstorming this fic all day at school… unfortunately I'd forgotten to bring my netbook charger with me to school today, but luckily I was able to notice it before my netbook got too low, and so used my netbook sparingly and I still had 20% left by hometime.

So, the Danger beats up the Doctor! Not originally what I'd imagined – I'd actually imagined Danger and the Doctor having to have sex so the Danger could stabilize, and… yeah, something more innocent came to mind, but it's still horrible, even by my standards. Will I continue this? I might if I get some nice reviews, and not just an endless stream of bullshitters.

Martha and Jack! Because I missed them and wanted them to meet the Eleventh Doctor – even if he's a bit unapproachable now. I'm very sorry about that, everyone! It was how it went in my brain.


End file.
